MAY 2024
Current Issues: Eating Disorders

Eating disorders, the most common of which are anorexia nervosa, bulimia nervosa, binge-eating disorder, and avoidant restrictive food intake disorder, are serious, biologically influenced medical illnesses marked by severe disturbances to one’s eating behaviors. Jason Nagata, MD, recently shared his work on the expanding understanding of how eating disorders affect adolescent boys in a recent New York Times article and in a KQED interview, Why More Boys Are Developing Eating Disorders.

Marissa Raymond-Flesch, MD, MPH, along with colleagues, is currently designing a clinical trial to test the use of psilocybin-assisted therapy for the treatment of anorexia nervosa in young adults. Individuals with anorexia nervosa have unique medical vulnerability which may overlap with the physiologic effects caused by psilocybin administration. The safety and tolerability of psilocybin therapy in this population can be optimized through the risk mitigation strategies proposed in a recent review by Raymond-Flesch and her colleagues in The Journal of Eating Disorders.

Erin Accurso, PhD focuses on increasing access to quality mental health treatment for underserved, diverse youth with eating disorders. She recently completed a randomized clinical trial for community-based mental health clinicians that compared training methods in an evidence-based intervention for restrictive eating disorders. Forthcoming results will inform efforts to improve publicly-funded mental health services for young people with eating disorders. She is also leading another trial funded by the National Eating Disorders Association examining a low-cost online intervention for eating disorders that has the potential for widespread dissemination among adults served by publicly-funded health systems.

A recent article published by Accurso and colleagues in the Journal of the American Academy of Child & Adolescent Psychiatry highlighted the gross underdiagnosis of EDs among youth with Medicaid insurance. A subsequent study found that among those diagnosed, most received no eating disorder-related medical diagnosis, underscoring structural barriers to receiving expert medical care, especially for Latinx youth.
IHPS Faculty Spotlight
Dr. Samira Soleimanpour is an Assistant Professor in the Philip R. Lee Institute for Health Policy Studies and the Department of Epidemiology and Biostatistics.

Dr. Soleimanpour has led numerous multi-site, multi-method school and adolescent health research and evaluation projects with UCSF since 2000. Her primary research interests focus on the influences of school environments and health services on children’s health care access and outcomes, with a particular focus on school-based health centers (SBHCs), school-based mental health services, and community-based participatory research. She has evaluated several local and statewide initiatives to improve physical and mental health and outcomes for school-aged children and contributed to the development of national performance measures for SBHCs. She is committed to the translation of research and evaluation findings into policies and programs that improve children's health and educational outcomes.
2024 UCSF
Health Services Research Symposium
The 2024 UCSF Health Services Research Symposium was a success, attended by over 250 faculty, staff and trainees. Mark your calendar for the 2025 UCSF Health Services Research Symposium on April 29, 2025.
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Research Highlights


Media Mentions
Philip R. Lee Fellowship Fund Endowed
Since its founding 50 years ago, IHPS has been dedicated to training the next generation of leaders in interdisciplinary research to solve our most important health policy issues. In celebration of our 50th anniversary and to honor our founders, Phil Lee and Lew Butler, we established an endowment fund for the Philip R. Lee Fellowship. We are pleased to announce the fund has been endowed! We hope to continue to keep this fund and our fellowship program robust. Please consider donating at our dedicated webpage!